


Le Don

by 89JadedPictures



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, F/M, M/M, Multi, Mystery Character(s), Post-War, Triad - Freeform, dramionarry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-23 19:50:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17689778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/89JadedPictures/pseuds/89JadedPictures
Summary: It's been over five years since Hermione fled England with hopes to never return. She awakens after being beaten and dumped on the grounds of Hogwarts, with no memory of how she got home. Now she's forced to unravel the mystery with the help of the kind-hearted Harry Potter, and her old nemesis Draco Malfoy. (Post-war A/U. Triad Fic (Draco/Hermione/Harry)





	1. Lay, Lady, Lay

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is about balance and righting the world. But do take note that it is an AU. Also note that this fic does not contain rape, or any forms of it. I rated this ‘M’ because it is for adults only. There are adult situations in this fic. There are many possible genres, so many that I couldn’t properly categorize it. If you are lighthearted, please turn away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank I was BOTWP for being my amazing alpha! I love her so.

Chapter One - Lay, Lady, Lay

The first thing Hermione registered as she came to was her inability to move. The second thing she registered was insurmountable pain. 

The feeling of the rushing blood through her body was so ensnaring that the sensations hitting her nerves caused her muscles to bunch of their own accord, and she curled in pain as best as her body would allow. Loud and guttural groans of discomfort left her mouth at the all-over throbbing in her bones, only for them to them mix and die in the wind.

She lay in the fetal position on tall, wet grass. The pain in her face made it nearly impossible to open her eyes. Her jaw was more-or-less dislocated on her left side, and the same when for her left shoulder. She would have believed she’d been hit by a car on that side, had it not been for the pain of her broken leg and the pinch and stab of cracked and broken ribs of her right. She tried to tuck her knees closer to her chest, which did nothing to ease the pain; nor did it help warm her as the cold wind ran unforgiving through her soaked shorts and t-shirt. She didn’t wear shoes, and the gusts of wind were causing cold drops of water to hit her bare skin; sockless feet and toes turning into ice-cubes.

The injured woman tried again to move, unhappily, away from the wet and the cold, but the motion only caused more pain as her broken leg and arm slipped and slumped ungracefully in her attempt to stay shielded and warm. The way her body wracked from the cold gave way to something close to convulsions. The cold that surrounded her and the slightly warmed patch of grass she lay upon gave her the first fully conscious realization since she’d awoken.

‘I am not in Thailand anymore.’

She should have felt beads of sweat from the tropical atmosphere, not icy pricks and stings of high-velocity rain hitting her swollen flesh. She should have felt the thin mat below her body, the only thing separating her from the bamboo floor of her room at Tanet and Malai’s, where her wand lie three years forgotten under a loose floorboard near her pillow.

Malai should be singing and humming as she made Tanet breakfast, or Tanet getting ready for the day. Tanet… She should smell his pipe tobacco mixed with the threat of tropical morning rain, not this dreary, icy, cold shite!

Then she had another cognitive thought.

‘Am I in England?!’

Her lips felt fused together from dehydration, but they opened to let out a sad sob at the thought of her premature return to her home country. The noise was more pained than the last time she’d cried out, and she had to swallow the tears. 

She was not ready to be back and face those she’d left behind. In fact, she’d never thought she’d be at all. She’d left them behind for a reason.

She was not ready to face her grandparents, whom she’d left to deal with her disappearance, and the death of her parents, alone. She could not face Harry or Ginny, or even Ron, whom she knew without a doubt she had left heartbroken. She did not want to think about them, or where she’d ended up.

She didn’t want to think about France…

She never wanted to think of France. 

She made another attempt to open her eyes, only to be greeted with more darkness, accompanied by the great many specks that dotted her blurry vision she knew must be stars. She closed her eyes quickly, knowing she would fail in trying to figure out where she was in her current state. She’d struggle in the daylight, let alone in darkness. 

She decided to not even try and save herself or will away her pain that was increasing more and more by the second. In her defeat, she let her head roll into the grass as her face started to freeze with the cold blasts of air that seemed to be coming closer and closer together. She tried to imagine, in her diluted brain, that she was at home with Malai in the garden, planting the vegetables and fruits. Or with Tanet in the small training room in the house, being taught forms in both Thai Chi and Muay Thai.

He could have gotten into a lot of trouble teaching her, a non-native woman, the art of their beloved form of combat. But he’d taught her anyway, after witnessing the way she had taken to learning the Thai language and its different forms and tonal inflection, and how she had excelled quickly in the kitchen with Malai making traditional Thai food. The man had been curious to see if she would have a knack for his ancient artform. 

At first, for almost three months, she had failed all too miserably in her attempts at physical training, and she, Hermione Granger, almost quit. But she hadn't, and neither had Tanet, seeing that she had been determined to try and try again.

She tried to never think of France, and especially not England, but it had been after France that she had come to live with the kind couple. Malai had found Hermione sitting behind a tall pile of hay near an old farmer’s barn on the road heading back from town. Hermione, dressed in a dirty tattered gown, must have looked like she was in need of serious help. She had her wand for food and safety, but she allowed the Thai woman, with her kind brown eyes and beautiful tan skin, to walk straight up to her hunched form, only to demanded with dramatic hand signals that she go with her.

Hermione had only been in Thailand a week, so Malai’s words had meant little to her. She’d been bumming around with too many cares in the world, but not the care to learn how to communicate, nor the urge to transfigure or clean her clothes. She’d simply allowed herself to lie about, stewing in depression and self-loathing, survivor's guilt, in her ragged gown… in a bed of mud… on a Thai farm… with the heifers. 

Tanet had not been happy with the idea of another woman in his house, especially a white British woman. Hermione sat quietly, feeling awkward, while Malai and Tanet loudly hashed out their business about what to do with the woman staying in the guest room. Luckily, at that point she couldn’t understand their words. But she hadn’t needed to, because the yelling had been enough.

Hermione never thought that the angry man, who obviously loved his wife very much to let her talk him into Hermione’s presence, would ever talk to her, let alone train her in his family’s long-standing tradition of hand-to-hand combat. Tanet was distant and cold, or at least it at started that way. 

His demeanor changed the day she had served him his favorite breakfast, jok, while Malai had been at her sister’s overnight.

Hermione had presented the meal exactly as his wife would, even using the same phrase Malai would say to him upon setting the dish on the table before him. She had been there a month at that point, and Tanet had been unable to hide his shocked look of appreciation. She didn’t tell him that she’d practiced the sentence she’d used a thousand times, like a spell, before she’d served him.

Now, three years from that day when Malai had found her in a state of self-defeat, Hermione was sure that the physical pain she felt lying in the cold, wet grass was far worse than any she had ever felt in training with the Thai fighting master. Even torture at the hands of Bellatrix, that pain now an old memory, could not compare to the way she felt broken and dismantled in this moment. She was lost, severely incapacitated, wandless, and just fucking broken.

Cruciatus be damned!

But, the feeling she had felt that day years past, lying in the mud like swine, was still somehow greater pain than any physical beating she had ever received, and she willed herself no to think back to…

Never think of France.

She forced herself to contemplate other things: How long had she been lying there? How long had she been losing blood? That was blood, right..? When had she been taken, and where from? Had it been during her trek to train in the jungle, away from the prying, judgemental eyes of the village natives? Had it been while she was in the garden? Had she been in bed, asleep, when these unknown assailants had come for her? How long had it been?

She could not begin to fathom.

Brown eyes, the shade of rich earth, tried like hell to open once more. A strange hope filled her as she skimmed the horizon, glimpsing the welcome threat of sunrise. It was faint, but it was there. Perhaps, if the light of day came, someone would find her and get help.

“No one is coming,” she mumbled into the soaked blades of grass a few seconds later. Her voice sounded so odd, as if detached from her, and she held on to more memories of her home in the tiny village in the Thai jungle. She had been at peace there, with her days of obedience, meditation, and training. She had been able to begin swimming through the ocean of feelings that had crippled her so long ago.

She had begun to recognize a feeling of belonging in Thailand, like the way she had felt about Hogwarts before… before…

Hermione moved to shake her head to clear it of those memories as well, only for the movement to cause a surge of pain so vile her head began to feel as if it would explode, and the darkness of exhaustion and mind-numbing suffering began to take her consciousness.

She wondered, in those last moments before succumbing, who had done this to her and why they had left her in a discernible place to waste away and die? Why hadn’t they just delivered the last few blows and sent her to Saint Peter? Gods knew she deserved it, and the hell that awaited her. 

()()()()()

Draco had awoken early, sometime around five, in the bed next to his mother’s in their private quarters of St. Mungo’s.

He watched Narcissa sleep for an hour or so, then he’d kissed the still sleeping witch goodbye. He spelled his effects to fit easily in his pocket before moving from the room to make toward the lobby and the hospital’s Apparition/Disapparition point.

The blonde man walked through the halls of the massive hospital, his grey eyes staring out the window that looked out over the dimly lit courtyard, peering into the darkness as if he could see through it as easily as the window. The shadows beyond the candlelight no longer held any danger or mystery for the pale, brooding wizard, what with the shadows that haunted his mind being far more disturbing than any giant spider or hooded assailant or Dark Lord could ever be.

Perhaps it was safe to say that he could see through the night.

Draco Malfoy sighed, fighting the urge to grind his teeth in anger for the twentieth time that morning. He had taken the weekend to visit St. Mungo’s where his mother lie bedridden, plagued with maddening dreams and fits of hysterical anguish. The house elves had been unable to cope with the new Narcissa Malfoy. The woman, so formerly perfect, put together and confident, had spent years spiraling downward after Lucius had been sentenced to life in Azkaban. She had held it together for just over two years, but then Draco started to see little things slipping.

Soon, bigger issues came up; actions that he could no longer hide or ignore. He tried to take care of her himself, along with the help from their houselves. Finally, he had swallowed his pride and asked for outside help. The last three years of her stay at the hospital had proven that Draco had been right in putting her there.

The officials there had been happy enough to convince him they would take the utmost care of Narcissa, but he still had this niggling fear due to the fact that he knew that they knew who his mother was, and he hoped like hell that she was being treated well while he was away, while they tried to figure out some way to restore her sanity.

Another sigh…

Draco stepped into the lobby, avoiding the Floo system (which would take him to the twenty four hour Floo in the The Three Broomsticks), and he apparated to Hogsmeade, landing beside a covered bench near the Express. He decided he would sit on the bench instead of immediately taking a carriage to Hogwarts, for he had some time before classes started.

He closed his eyes and tilted his face up to the sky, happy for the moment of solitude and the feeling of complete bliss at the sensation of his lids resting together. Sleep had been a problem for him for as long as he could remember, but it had been coming in alarmingly small amounts as of late. Every time he was in a sleep deep enough to dream, nightmares of the war and its casualties, both the living and the dead, haunted his subconscious. 

The worst images had been those in which everyone but Draco had died, and a mountain of bodies that reached the clouds stretched up before the lone wizard. Everyone he’d ever known would be in that pile, and every face had eyes that were stuck open, and stared at him as he walked around them. Even when he wanted to look away, the dream wouldn't let him. As far as that dream goes, Draco had never felt so cold.

Slytherin commons be damned!

He rarely looked closely at the faces of the dead in his dreams, but that dream had forced him to look and remember what he had had a hand in making. What he had made possible for the Dark Lord.

A growl of frustration…

Every moment draco spent alone, he thought of the faces… All of the blank, grey faces…

His mum and dad, his aunts and uncles and cousins. Snape. His friends Vince, Greg, Blaise, Theo, and Pansy. Potter, all of the Weasleys, Granger, Longbottom, McGonagall, Sprout, Trelawney, Dumbledore…

Dumbledore…

The list was fucking endless, and that name somehow took the bloody cake.

A frustrated hand went to go through his hair, and he remembered all too late that he had pulled it back and tied it at the base of his neck with a bit of black ribbon. It wasn’t nearly as long as his father’s, but it was still an infuriating length nonetheless. Especially at this moment when he had to grab his wand to fix it and put it back to its original state. He must have forgotten his hair glue charm that morning. He cast one, just to be done with the chore.

If it had not been Monday morning, the day to get back to the grind, he would have considered going home for a solid attempt at sleep for the night before returning to his post. But, alas, duty called.

His position as Potions Master was now nearing the end of its second year, and he had yet to win any “love” from his fellow teachers, despite it being over seven years since the war had ended. He doubted taking extra time off would win him points. McGonagall, though happy to hire him, still treated him with icy detachment. She only spoke to him when she needed him to do something, or order him to do something, which was quite often seeing as he was head of Slytherin House. And this simply because all of the other professors refused to take the job.

“Cunts,” Draco sneered aloud at his absent co-workers.

Though Potter, The Man Who Lived, and Hogwarts’ DADA professor for four years running, had every right to treat Draco like dragon shite, he never did. There had been no heartfelt apologies, no bloody sob stories or brotherly embraces. There had simply been an unspoken “agreement” to be civil and stay the fuck out of each other’s ways. That suited Draco well enough, as it made it far easier to float through time if he was undisturbed and employed.

Granted, he didn’t need the money, but it kept him busy and his mind from wandering to places it shouldn’t be. Like those bloody dreams, where eyes of every color and shade played on a loop. Dead, cold, expressionless eyes of every person he had harmed, whether purposeful or inadvertent.

Before loo long, the sun rose from its place beside the horizon, beside the looming castle, and Draco realized he had spent the past half hour brooding instead of looking over his lesson plans for the week as he had planned to do with his pregame free time. But, of course, he’d been concentrating on a load of awful shite he could do nothing about at present. Or ever. 

After ensuring the state of his hair with a glance at his reflection in the perfectly shined train, he made his way toward the small carriage that awaited him. He climbed into the open door and settled in, just in time for the carriage to begin its tilt and bob journey up the windy dirt road. It was quite cold for a May morning, and it was obvious from the wetness that the storm that had hit the hospital that night previous had also rained all over Hogwarts.

‘Starting fresh,’ he mused inwardly, moving to the curtain to draw it back and look at the gorgeous morning light that played across the drenched grounds, and the newly budded flowers, and the-

“What in the fuck is that?!” Draco yelled, before adding, “Stop the bloody carriage!”

As the wobbly box on wheels tried to stop its lurching, Draco sprang from the door and toward the lump of fabric, gold skin and hair that lay some ways away, completely still.

‘Please, gods! Don’t let it be a student!’ His mind pleaded, the small form he quickly approached looking as near to death as anything he had ever seen. 

Had this student really wandered halfway to Hogsmeade in their bedclothes in the rain?

He fell hard to his knees behind the body and he quickly assessed the very obvious and sickening damage. If the girl was not dead, and if she eventually came to, he was sure she would wish to be. The one leg of the form that Draco could tell was female was twisted in such a way that it could not be natural, nor could it feel like anything less than hell.

He put his fingers under the matted dirt, blood, and grass covered brown hair that shrouded the face before him, and he placed the tip of his fingers on her pulse… and found it. He breathed a loud sigh of relief as he made to position her properly before levitating her back to the carriage.

As he flipped her slowly, the woman fell lightly onto her back, and he nap of curls and mud fell from her face, allowing Draco to have the first look of Hermione Granger he, and anyone else he knew, had had in years. The damage to her face was great, but Draco would never forget that face. She was on the pile of bodies in his nightmares.

He could hardly explain the feeling that shot through him then, as if he’d been dead and someone had shocked his heart until he awoke. As if someone had put the granddaddy of Baruffio’s Brain Elixir into a syringe and shot it straight into his heart, only to cause his head to explode.

“Great Merlin’s nuts!” Draco could not stop the very un-Draco like high-pitched exclamation of panic that he let out at the sight of the bloodied, broken body that was his former schoolmate.

Draco knew that there still had been people holding out hope that she was alive, somewhere. But, Draco was not one of them. Not that he wanted her to be dead, but life had taught Draco to expect the worst. A woman disappears one night, taking nothing with her or even leaving a letter- that’s abduction. And then years of Potter, Weasley, and a team of the world’s best aurors turning up nothing? What the hell did people expect?

It was obvious to him that, if she had been abducted five years ago, a body would not be found now after so long. Had she been enslaved? If she had, why would her captor bring her back after all of this time, in this state? To Hogwarts?

After allowing his shock to put him into a momentary state of inaction, Draco Levitated the woman before him and moved back to the carriage quickly and carefully, intent on making it to Poppy’s infirmary before the faint beating of Hermione’s heart decided to stop.

(Lay, Lady, Lay - Bob Dylan; in my preferred style by Ministry)

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed  
Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead  
I long to see you in the morning light  
I long to reach for you in the night


	2. Waiting in Vain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry is told about Hermione's return by Draco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing, except maybe the story line. Who knows? I hope I do, it's just impossible to claim this to be the only thing like it, you know what I mean? I hope it's original! And on a different note, only some of the chapter titles will be songs. If it is, you'll find the title and who done it at the bottom. I don't own those either.

The seventh year class of Defense Against the Dark Arts was Harry's first class of the day, and oddly enough, his favorite. Though he was not much of a morning person, he loved that his students were, and that they were always ready and willing to try any of the new spells he gave them. Their enthusiasm always allowed him to save his energy for the fourth years who wanted to be lazy and uninterested.

Yes, he was grateful for his seventh years class, for he always had time to have his two cups of black tea every morning, needing the boost to get him through the rest of his day. The ease of this class was always a good companion to his slow starting system, which took an hour or so to properly ingest the caffeine; his life's blood.

Sleep had been evading him, even more than usual the past year, so the caffeine was very important. He thought he'd figured out a sleep schedule a few years ago, but then his grasp on reality began to slip, ever so slightly. Nothing to be concerned over, at least not for now…

It had started with a dream he had about him, Ron, and Hermione sitting on the shore of the Black Lake in summer attire, at sun set.

They all seemed older, older than they were, or would be, now, but not yet near forty. None of them spoke, none of them laughed, but none of them seemed downtrodden or somber, either. They seemed content, more content than they'd ever been, and though it was not a nightmare, it still startled him awake as if it had been scariest shite he'd ever seen.

Hermione…

She'd looked so happy, and strong, and her eyes were filled with a look so full of ease he had to blink back the memory of her face at that moment. She'd been gone five years, and yet he let the memory of her disappearance, his guilt in not being able to save her from her fate, once again plague his nights and torture his days.

He thought he'd figured it out a sleep schedule...

Potions, spells, food, diet, exercise, booze, women, a stint with psychedelic drugs four summers ago, right after her disappearance; charity events in her honor, public statements, leaving Auror training for teaching- he'd tried it all. He'd tried all he could think of to make the memory of her less painful. His guilt, Ron's heartache, it had all been too much.

He and Ron had been Aurors for barely over year the day she disappeared, but Shacklebolt had decided, even with their closeness to the investigation, and their fresh titles of "Auror in Training", that the two would stop at nothing to find her. And so, the new official Minister decided to allow them to look for her. He’d allowed interrogations, subpoenas, raids, even difficult to attain contracts to allow such actions in other countries. Nothing came of it. Not even from the former Death Eaters in Azkaban, whom they'd interrogated about uprisings and new plans of action from their peers that included kidnapping a third of the golden Trio.

Harry had even gone so far as to visit Malfoy Manor, much to his not-yet-coworker's distaste, to search for her there. Even after all of the magic the two men used to find her, she was never recovered. No body, no hint of a struggle, no footprints… No clues at all!

It was as if she'd gone to bed that fateful night and disapparated from it, without ever looking back.

But Hermione Granger wouldn't do that, Harry knew. She was the strongest person he'd ever known, and as hard as it was to accept that she'd possibly been taken against her will and murdered, he had never accepted the theory that she'd left of her own volition. 

That was not Hermione Granger's MO. Not then, not now, not ever!

He had accepted, however, defeat. After a yearlong bout of depression and dodged hopes and dreams, Harry retired. He left Ron, and the cold case, behind. The Weasley man still refused to stop looking. He'd loved her, more than anything else in the world and he still did. He'd never stopped looking, not even to this day. The red-head would sporadically owl Harry, and ask him a short question about what he thought of this theory, or that theory. Harry would reply, to humor him, but mostly he didn't even want to think about it.

They were never going to find her, and she was never coming back.

"Potter!" Harry's head snapped up to look at the doorway, away from his second cup of tea and the book he was struggling to read through pained memories.

Every one of the students’ heads, at least those who had made it to class thus far, followed their Professor's lead to look at the intruder. They all openly stared at the disgruntled, lacking his trademark malice, Draco Malfoy. The man's usually untouchable, untouched appearance looked off. Very off.

He was without his robes; his usual black, flowing Snape-like atrocity was never absent from his shoulders, rain or shine. Harry suspected he slept in them! The black sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up to the elbows (his tattoo obviously hidden with a charm), the silver snake cufflinks missing with their expensive glint. The black ribbon that usually held the slicked back helmet of hair was even missing, the locks now falling about his shoulders making the young Malfoy look similar to the elder.

And his eyes, which Harry rarely looked at because they always held the look of a snake ready to strike, looked so bloody alarmed! It was barely 7:55 a.m. Classes hadn't even officially started yet. Why did he already look like he'd dealt with six hours of first year lessons? Or worse? Like he'd sword fought his boggart before breakfast?

That last one seemed the best comparison for his face.

"Malfoy?" Harry blinked at the man, "What is it?" Harry tried not to look too amused at Malfoy's flitting control. He had never come to his classroom, ever, so this interaction was already odd. When the pale man seemed to fidget for a moment, another odd gesture for him, Harry had to hide his amused smile.

"The Head Matron has cancelled your classes for the day, Potter. And she has instructed me to tell you to come with me. Immediately." Malfoy's voice was serious, but shaken, and Harry's face went from a look of confusion at the first statement, to one of worry at the next. 'Cancel the whole day?!'

"What is it?" Harry asked him again. 

The blonde man went back to his usual sneering glare at the question, and he righted his shoulders and spat, "You heard when I said your class was canceled, did you not?" 

The man's anger-ridden eyes moved about the room at the students, who all jumped from their chairs at once as he ended his question. Malfoy moved into the doorway as the students grabbed their belongings and exited the room. Harry finished his still warm tea with one gulp before setting the cup on the desk, then moved towards the door so that he could follow Malfoy to wherever it is the Head Matron deemed more important than classes.

'God knows that doesn’t happen very often…' Harry thought, his confusion heightening by the second.

"Malfoy, come off it and tell me what's happening. Did some of the animals get loose? Did Peeves set the Slytherin common room on fire again?" Malfoy sighed, somehow keeping that sneer on his lips in the process, and moved to practically push the last student out of the room to leave. Harry scowled, and left the room, locking it and charming the "Class Is Cancelled For Today" sign on the door before taking off after the nearly sprinting Malfoy.

'What has his girly knickers all twisted?' Harry wondered. 'Since when did he practically run through the halls?' Harry hadn't seen him do anything of the sort since the war. 'The coward…'

"Keep up, Potter!" Malfoy snipped over his shoulder rather loudly as they ascended the staircase and made their way through the halls. It didn't take very long for Harry to realize that they were off to the infirmary. 'What? Who's hurt?'

"Who's hurt?" Harry asked, picking up his pace to fall in beside Draco in his realization that something really bad had happened. Matching the fair-haired man's hurried tromp, the two men nearly jogged down the hall to the infirmary door.

Before Harry could put his hand to the knob, Malfoy did so first, and turned to him to whisper, "You must promise to be quiet. She's not doing well."

The twitch in Harry's lip was unmistakable as one of complete and total understanding. It wasn't the twitch of a smile, or a laugh, but the twitch of someone whose heart stopped beating for a moment, and whose life was falling down on top of them like a wall of tumbling bricks.

The second Draco pushed the door open Harry's eyes took no time to look toward the back corner of the room, where a curtain was drawn tellingly around a bed. All of the other beds were empty, so Harry sprinted to the curtain in a flash. His blood was rushing through his body, pounding in his ears and throat and eyes. His stomach was aching from the knots of anticipation that caused an awful pain in his entire abdomen.

As Pomfrey came out from around the curtain at the sound of his arrival, Harry physically pushed her away from him as she came up to say something, ignoring the woman's cry if indignation. She'd probably been getting ready to warn him to be quiet, or some other such shite, but he could give two fucks about Poppy's rules at present.

Harry ripped the curtain back, the metal rings jingling on their path along the track, exposing to him a horror that he could not say he would ever be ready to face.

There she lay, purple and black and blue, and covered in white bandages, and-

"Hermione!" The word was a strangled whisper, the levy breaking his entire being, interio, exterior, and the catch in his throat only lasted half a second before the tears and sobs left him. He was gentle, as he sat beside her on the bed, brushing her wild curls away from a swollen, bruised face, assessing the situation.

It was her, it was. She was different- so, so different. But it was her. Even with the bruising, her eyes closed, her face set and wrapped to help heal whatever had happened to her jaw, he could tell that it was her, and he could tell that she was changed, even beyond the beating she had received.

Her normally light olive skin was darker, as if she had spent every day she was gone in the sun. Her hair was lighter in some areas, another telling sign of her life outdoors, and the muscles of her arms showed that she had been hard at work. Had she been... enslaved? Why would she look like she was fit and sun-tanned, but look like she'd been shoved down a mine shaft? Had she been subjected to a life of arduous, bone cracking labor?

"What happened to you?" Harry asked her still form, not caring about the tears that fell as he took one of her hands in one of his, letting the other continue to stroke her hair. "Where have you been?"

()()()()()

Draco had been more than nervous to go find Potter. He hated that McGonagall had chosen him as the man for the job, but he could say nothing about her decisions, and he left the women in the infirmary in search of his old nemesis. 

He'd known when he'd stood in the door to get Potter's attention that he was in for quite an uncomfortable turn of events. Not that the events that had already transpired that morning were so pleasant, but he knew it would get worse.

The look on Potter's face as he realized, quite quickly, who was on the other side of the infirmary door, was enough to let Draco know that the waterworks were coming. Draco couldn't say he was impressed by the man's sharp mind, but he assumed it had something to do with the fact that Potter had probably waited for this news every day since she'd gone, and was, more than likely, always ready to receive the news that she had been found.

That was a thought that unsettled Draco greatly, and caused him to feel a glimmer of… pity for Potter. Not a long one, but one nonetheless. Draco tried to reason, that if he had lost his mother or someone else dear to him for five years, he'd probably feel the same way. He'd have probably watched out the windows for arriving owls every day of his life, waiting for an answer, waiting for her return.

And, if the fresh thoughts in Draco's mind weren't enough to cause him to feel that foreign feeling for the Man Who Lived, the awful, Merlin forsaken sad sobbing that the man let out at the sight of the woman had caused a tightening so hard in Draco's chest, he'd had to look away from them. It felt too private, too intimate, to watch it transpire.

Hearing it was bad enough! Potter's questions, sobs, and pleas… He wouldn't allow himself to watch.

Draco decided then that it was time for him to leave. He'd done his part. Pomfrey said Granger would live, so he had fulfilled his responsibilities. He'd fucking sprinted through the castle carrying Hermione to deliver the woman to Pomfrey, he'd then run just as quickly to alert McGonagall, only to be told that he needed to fetch Potter, all of which was done and now he could go.

He was quiet as he finished the few steps to the chair by the bed where he had left his cloak, and made a strong point not to look at either of the people on the bed. Pomfrey must have gone to heal her wounded pride at the near shove Potter had given her as she'd tried to stop the raven-haired man's advance. Draco might have felt bad for the old woman, but honestly, what had she expected? She's lucky that's all she got for assuming she could step between Harry Potter and an injured Hermione Granger.

As Draco stepped away, throwing his former Professor's flowing black cloak over his shoulders, Potter asked him, "What happened? Where was she found?" His voice was weak, and still laced in sadness, and Draco had to force a gulp before he answered calmly,

"I found her on my way back from Hogsmeade, halfway up the road. She was like that when I found her, so don't go leaping to any moronic conclusions. She and I had our differences, but- that?" Draco had to pause, pulling his lips into his mouth and clamping down on flesh with his teeth and sighing as his eyes traitorously glanced to the beaten witch in the bed. "I could never do that. I brought her here, she is safe… I have classes to teach."

Potter said nothing more as Draco left the infirmary without another glance backward. He was at least ten minutes late to his first lesson, and it would be nearly twenty by the time he got there. McGonagall had tried to get him to take the day off from classes as well, but he had refused. Not only would the false rumors fly about as to why the two professors took the day off, but he'd awoken at five, still in London, that very morning to be ready for class, and he was not going to cancel now. If he was going to cancel, he would have done so yesterday when he had contemplated not returning to the school until Tuesday.

If he had done that, though, he would not have found Granger at the crucial moment that he had…

No, classes would continue. And Draco assumed it was for the best, for there was no way he could sit alone in silence now. The sounds of Poppy popping Granger's bones back into place, coupled with the sounds of the witches cries of unconscious agony as the pain and sleeping draughts fought their way through her system, would likely haunt Draco all day. Hell. If not all night, then for the rest of forever and ever and ever.

Once she had awoken, and Draco knew that all of what he'd witnessed and done wasn't in vain, he would replace the memory of her bruised and broken and bloody form with one of her awake and healthy.

Draco did not know why it all bothered him so much. He figured the nightmares had been getting to him more than usual. He didn't need any more flesh fuel for the flesh fire that ignited every time he tried to close his eyes, sleeping or not.

'Where have you been?' Potter's quiet question rung in Draco's ears, nearly blocking out the sound of his shoes as they hit the stone floor in his voyage to the dungeons, causing more uncomfortable feelings to stir within him.

If this wasn't all such a giant mystery, perhaps her pain and suffering wouldn't bother him so much. 

Potter would know who did this soon enough, and he would find the stupid cunt, and pull off some miraculous feat to kill the asshole, because that is what Potter did best. Then all would be fixed, and all questions would be answered.

But why did that matter to him; that all was fixed, that questions were answered? Why did he care if Potter would go exact vigilante justice? Draco used to hate it when the Golden Trio would make their own rules, and then break their own rules, along with countless real rules, and walk away from it unscathed.

For some reason, Draco wanted to see an encore of that most infuriating behavior, despite how much it used to make his blood boil in his youth.

Sure, he did care what happened to the witch, simply because of how much they had gone through in their lives. The same way he… cared for Potter..? Draco pulled a sour face at the thought.

He may not like them, but he hadn't wished harm on them in so long, and it bothered him that such a thing would happen now after all of these years. He used to imagine Granger injured as she was now, and he would revel in it. His resentment for her was so strong then that he found a way of getting off on thinking of her being beaten within an inch of her life.

But he was a sick and twisted boy then.

Shite, he was a sick and twisted man now! But in a different way- a pathetic way- a far more pathetic way than wishing harm on young girls. He was despicable in a way where remorse and guilt drove him to continue on with his life like an empty shell. He did not live his life to live anymore, but to amend, that was it. He wished to help, and to right the wrongs he'd done…

It was hard for him at first, but he'd hit rock bottom some years ago when he'd been forced to get his mother help, and live alone in a house that constantly reminded him of how much he'd fucked up. He served a new Dark Lord in that house, a new master… a master named "Conscience". He no longer did things for his own happiness, for he was sure such a thing did not exist. It hadn't, not even in his childhood, and he tried to make up for it with anger and spite.

Now, he was a grown man, and he made up for what he lacked by being a slave to his own self-loathing. Only a self-loathing pile of dragon shite returned to such a place like Hogwarts, after doing so many things to harm it, to try and help put it back together… If he cared for himself, he would have simply taken up drinking and flying around on his broom in the halls of the empty Manor, breaking things, happy to live his life with lose, expensive women.

But no, he hated himself, he wanted to torture himself into redemption, and that was why he taught. That was why he would not take the day to recover from that morning's events. He would trudge on, and let Potter handle it. Hell, Weasley was probably on his way already, and the Golden Trio would go about handling things in whatever way they saw fit; once Granger was ready to tell them who tried to murder her and then dump her on the grounds of the school.

Draco shook his head of his questions, and of the images that decided to pop into his mind of the woman's mangled and torn form, of her muddy, bloody clothes; the swollen shut eyes, and bruises on her neck and arms and legs and-

The pale wizard growled audibly, slamming the door to the Potions classroom open. Every child present jumped, and whatever chatter the curious children had been having about their absent teacher quickly subsided. They all watched as their angrier than usual professor stormed into the room, headed to his desk, and began the day's late lesson.

(Waiting in Vain- Bob Marley and the Wailers)  
Ya see, in life I know there's lots of grief,  
But your love is my relief:  
Tears in my eyes burn - tears in my eyes burn  
While I'm waiting - while I'm waiting for my turn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: We never got to know Draco's Boggart, and I saw this meme that joked how Hermione Granger might have been his greatest fear. So, I kind of played on that with Harry's thoughts on Draco's face.
> 
> Review? I won't beg. There are no rules that say you have to. But I'll ask. Thanks for reading!


	3. Healing; A Spectators Sport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poppy, Minerva and Draco work to put Hermione back together.

Head Matron McGonagall was no stranger to bizarre apparitions, unfortunate events, horrific scenes of carnage, or sudden bouts of guilt; however, it had been a long time since she'd had the pleasure of dealing with all of them at once.

When Draco Malfoy entered her office, with only a few sharp knocks and without waiting to be granted entrance, she had no clue that that was exactly what she was about to do.

The Head Matron considered being cross with the young professor, whom she had grown secretly fond of, and who had also suddenly lost his sense of pureblood propriety. His entrance, done so without first awaiting her approval, was quite strange. As was the panic-stricken, fear-laden expression that somehow did not mar his handsome face. He did not wear Snape's signature "Wizsace" robes, which she was sure he slept in, and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up.

‘Where are those absurd snake cufflinks..?' she absently wodered.

His stomping, which was normal for the pale wizard, brought him to stand at the front her desk with a very serious stare, before practically yelling, "I found Granger half dead on the road from Hogsmeade! Poppy needs you in the infirmary!"

The witch, whose heart had skipped a beat at his words, blinked rather slowly a number of times at the unfortunately estranged wizard. He gave an oh so dramatic growl/sigh of frustration. His hand went to his hair, and fell short of running through it due to whatever charm he'd used to keep it in place. He muttered a growled "finite", and he pulled the ribbon from in his locks and proceeded to muss it in what Minerva could only classify as "child-like frustration".

'He isn't joking!' Minerva thought, bewildered, just before Draco snapped,

"I am not bloody joking, Minerva! I know, my reputation precedes me, but I am not saying this as a go at you! Poppy needs your input as far as what to do with the not-so dead, but almost fucking dead, Hermione bloody Granger!" 

Minerva had listened, but rather than looking directly at him, her eyes had followed his black ribbon. He held it between his thumb and middle finger, the length dancing as he flung his hand about for emphasis on his words, pointing this way and then that way.

"Language, Draco!" Minerva scolded, out of habit of course, before standing and gliding from the room with both grace and speed. 

Draco had not been her student in some years, so his language was none of her concern, to be honest. But she was his superior, and he had been a bit too brash just now. However, if what had him so flustered was in fact true, then she would forgive him this.

'Please,' Minerva inwardly pleaded to her gods and goddesses as she led Draco to the infirmary. 'Please. Don't let him be having a fit of insanity.' She took the thought back instantly, ashamed that she had had it. She knew the reason behind Draco's early morning return from Hogsmeade. 'Oh, Narcissa…'

"Minerva!" Poppy exclaimed from her spot near her store room door as Minerva and Draco entered the room, closing the door behind them. The chaotic air of the infirmary made Minerva's magic stand on end at a million points. Her sharp green eyes stared at the nurse's panic stricken features as she moved to stand closer to the Head Matron.

'Dear gods that be!' Minerva thought. 'It is true!'

"It's her, Minerva! There's no transfiguration, no potion, no trickery of any sort… It's Hermione Granger!" The old nurse looked beside herself, and was as white and shaky as one who'd seen an eerie spectacle. This only caused Minerva to believe Draco's tale completely, for Poppy had seen just as much as anyone else who'd chosen her profession. To see the older witch look shocked and askew was almost frightening. That chaotic energy must have been Poppy's magic. Minerva could feel it now as she stood close to the nurse.

After taking in her surroundings with a quick flit of her eyes, Minerva noticed the one drawn curtain in the back corner of the room, and she moved past Poppy to go beyond it, laying her eyes upon the mangled mess of Hermione Jean Granger.

The poor girl… She was covered in mud and blood and gods knew what else, and her muggle clothes were soaked through. Her jaw was twisted to one side, as was one of her legs, which looked like Poppy had already begun to address with dark purple goo. One of her shoulders was obviously disfigured through the wet, stuck fabric of her shirt that also clung to her to show she wore nothing underneath. The once pale skin, now tan, was darker still with bruises that covered every inch of her body.

"I may need you two to hold her down. I need to give her another dose before I go putting her back together, and I doubt she'll be happy about it." 

Poppy's words cut through Minerva's unladylike staring, and the older witch had to gently push the Head Matron aside so that she could set a small vile to Hermione's lips.

"Why don't you ask Potter to help?" Draco asked, still sounding shaken.

"Does Harry know?" Minerva asked quickly, astonished her mind had not thought of the man sooner. Draco shook his head, and she came to conclude at his countenance that he was truly as uncomfortable as he looked.

"No. I just now arrived," The fair-haired man moved to the other side of the bed, and Minerva watched him battle inwardly before he put one timid arm over Hermione's stomach, and a shaking hand on her unbroken shoulder. He looked to be bracing her, and himself, for what was about to come. 

Minerva joined him, holding down the bruised and bleeding legs as gently as she could by the ankles.

Once Poppy had given Hermione the potion Minerva presumed was a pain reliever, the older witch moved her skilled hands to the youngest witch's face, took in a deep breath, and forced the bones back together with skills Minerva always forgot Poppy had. The nurse was quick to spell some bandages just before the beginning of a long set of chilling screeches left Hermione's lips.

It was a mix of pains from Poppy's work on her jaw and then using it to scream, Minerva was sure. But then, the sounds increased as Hermione's eyes opened, filled to the brim with pain, panic, and tears, for she had finally begun to feel all of the other pains in her body. Minerva subconsciously motioned her hand to cast a nonverbal silencing charm over the infirmary. 

‘No one else needs to hear this.’

The young witch on the bed began to tremble and quake, as best as her body would allow. Her eyes tried to keep from fluttering closed but to no avail. Then they opened as full as possible, before slamming shut; and then opening just enough to see them roll back into her skull. When they closed once more, it caused tears to pour from every corner.

"Why is she jerking like this?" Draco asked in shaking voice.

"She must have been Crucio'd… a lot. Her nerves have been damaged by it. Pass me a sleeping draught," Poppy ordered the Potions Master, who looked to the bedside table behind him for only a moment before grabbing the draught his skilled mind new was the requested potion. He opened it and passed it to Poppy, who forced it down Hermione's cracked and bleeding lips that were still releasing horrid shrieks and moans. The liquid caught somewhere in her throat, and Draco moved to sit her up farther, in hopes of making the task easier, obviously trying to ignore how it seemed to hurt the witch.

Once the nurse was done with administering the potion, she moved down the witch's body and put her hands to her broken leg. She moved the bones with a loud "crack" once, and then again a second time, the second sound seeming hollower than the last. Hermione continued to quake and twitch, and Minerva looked to see how Draco was fairing with his task of handling the sight of Hermione so close to death.

Draco Malfoy, to Minerva McGonagall, had always been a sad case. She'd known his family nearly all of her life, and she was not surprised by the boy who had shown up at her beloved school. His family and their consorts, the Purebloods with twisted views and inbred prejudice, had corrupted a boy Minerva had known had some good in him. She was not surprised, not in the slightest, at how disillusioned and brain washed the poor child had been. 'Had,' she thought with an odd sense of pride for the man.

As she watched him politely hold down his old arch nemesis and polar opposite, she could see that boy that no one else even wanted to see. She could see his cracked features as he stared at the broken witch's face, and she could recognize his look as what she could only peg as concern. He, Draco Malfoy, was obviously and genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of Hermione Granger.

Minerva had officially seen it all.

Hermione's half-conscious half-unconscious screams continued to play a gruesome melody, well into Poppy's mending of her ribs, and only tapered off a few moments after the ribs were set. 

Hermione's damaged physique slumped far into the bed and pillows, and the sections of her body that Poppy had mended looked even worse than they had five minutes ago. 'However that is possible!' Minerva thought.

With Hermione finally sedated, Minerva and Draco took almost simultaneous steps backward, yet were still unable to stop staring at Hermione for many, many seconds. Poppy continued her work, casting what sounded like bone setting and bone casting charms, and spells Minerva knew to be used for analyzing internal injury, disease, and foreign entities. She'd heard them often enough in her years to know them, and could probably cast them all herself at this point, but that was not her job. Her job now was-

"Draco," Minerva said softly, causing him to jump and turn to look at her. "Clean yourself up, and get Harry. He will need to know. Tell him to cancel his classes for the day, but do not tell him why until you have returned. This is not to leave this room. Are we clear?" The wizard was somehow paler, his disheveled hair had gotten something in it while dealing with Hermione's thrashing, and he had some bits of debris on his bare forearms and dress clothes. His eyes were sad and yet filled with anger, but not at her request. It was something else…

"Yes, Minerva," Draco replied obediently with a single nod, before turning to leave.

"You may cancel your classes as well," Minerva called after him, but she did not receive a reply. He was a man of few words, that Draco Malfoy. At least, these days he had been. But, she still took his silence as his polite way of saying 'no'.

"She seems to be taking to my treatment," Poppy said from her spot at Hermione's side, "I do not think it will take more than a week for her to recover, if the anti-inflammatory in that pain draught is any indication." Minerva moved around Poppy to look at Hermione's already waning swelling, "Wherever she's been, she's been healthy. She seems to have a proper diet, and has been physically active- very physically active, which all aids in a speedy recovery.

"There are signs of minimal, therefore fixable, brain damage. No diseases… Zero signs of sexual abuse." Minerva continued watching Poppy as she cast spell after spell, translating each reaction of her wand for Minerva, as well as for the spelled quill that floated in the air above some parchment, taking down Poppy's every word. "There is an extensive and vile list of curses and hexes that have been used on her. The crimes committed against Hermione were definitely committed within the last twenty four hours, if not within the last twelve.”

"Do you think this could have happened on the grounds?" Minerva asked, not realizing the sickening thought until just then.

"Who's to say, Min?" Poppy answered with a light shrug. "That storm last night was quite the howler! I could hardly sleep with that lightning! If it did happen on the grounds, then who's to say anyone would have heard? And even if not here, then the question stands on how they got through the barrier without setting the alarm? And why in God's name would someone go through the trouble of bringing her here?"

"If it had been Dark Wizards behind this, then they would have indeed set the alarm. Do you think they could have had her locked away somewhere- all of these years?" Minerva asked the last set of questions mostly to herself, knowing that no one would know the answer until Hermione woke up. They could pry into her mind to find out, yes, but there were laws against such things.

"You don't think- that Malfoy-"

"Stop," Minerva held her hand up, open palm facing towards Poppy in a physical attempt to silence the witch whose back was still to her. "Push whatever thoughts you have concerning his involvement in this from your mind, Poppy. I haven't seen an expression that even remotely resembles concern on that man's face in so many years. I- I cannot help but believe his worries are genuine."

"But- what if-"

"Please, Poppy, do be a dear and shut your gob. Draco Malfoy may have been a right- well, you know- some years ago, but he has been putting in an effort to right his mistakes." Poppy made an amused snort, but said nothing for many seconds while she continued working. She removed Hermione's clothes with a flick of her wrist, and began covering every inch of her skin with salves of different colors.

"If that is so, then it seems we have quite a mystery on our hands! I will have her patched up and conscious by days end tomorrow. Then we can ask her just what happened. I hope that the damage done to her brain does not hinder her ability to remember her assailants. I will have to ask Malfoy to brew me a few potions so we can help her heal, and hopefully restore all brain function, and any memories she might have lost.

"If they Obliviated her, well-"

"Let us hope for the best, shall we?" Minerva cut in. "I assume that my help is no longer needed. I wish to have a report on your findings by the end of the day. Let's keep this under lock and key for now, and you would do well to allow Harry any privileges he requires." Poppy threw her a rather dirty look, but nodded. Minerva laughed at her kindly. "If you wish to keep him out, be my guest. Just don't bother coming to me if he doesn't take well to your good intentions."

"I'll raise hell if he decides to bring his pompous arse in here and act-"

"Poppy! Honestly!" Minerva interjected. She was starting to feel tired of the barrage of emotions that had been thrown around the room already. "Just deal with it! You know what this has done to him. You know what potions you give him so that he can sleep!"

"He told you of that?" Poppy asked, now checking her settings and bandages.

"Yes. And I know it has something to do with her." Minerva pointed to Hermione. "When he finds out she's safe, you will be wise to allow him to visit any time of night. You will allow him to sleep in the bed next to her if he wishes.

"For all that Harry Potter has done for our world, it is the least that you could do. She's been gone for so long, Poppy. You must know how important this is- to everyone."

The years that passed in Hermione's absence had been strange for many. Everyone had expected her to lead a revolution of social and political reform; accomplishing feats from freeing house elves, to sitting at a hand carved mahogany desk with a shiny plaque that read "Hermione Granger: Minister for Magic". Hell, some had thought she'd be the one to knock down the walls of secrecy, and demand that Wizards and Muggles be permitted to intermingle, openly and freely without prejudice.

The day that Minerva had gotten the news of Hermione's disappearance, three days had already passed since they had discovered her empty room. Nothing was out of place; nothing was missing but Hermione and her wand.

Some believed the evidence to point to the girl being tricked to go outside, wand in hand, only to be abducted by whatever or whoever had gotten her to exit the safety of the Weasley Burrow. At first, they believed the culprits to be Death Eaters, stowing her away in hideouts in Bulgaria, Spain, Italy or Germany. Then they accused the French supporters of Grindelwald, who had tried to rise after the fall of Voldemort.

That had been a disaster that had ended just as quickly as it had started. 'Thank Morgana!' She thought.

People believed that someone had turned her bed sheets into a portkey, and it had transported her to an unknown location the second her head hit the pillow. Others said she'd finally failed at properly casting a spell, and had blown herself into infinitesimal specs of dust. Minerva had to chuckle at the memory of Flitwick claiming he'd heard his news from a reliable source, just as she had when she'd heard that mad drabble.

No, no. Hermione Granger had not blown herself up.

Hermione Granger had run away.

Minerva had known this as true, even before someone had brought it up as a theory. The Head Matron had met more people in her lifetime than anyone could care to meet. She'd met the wise and the ignorant, the weak and the strong. She'd had the misfortune of meeting the sad, the empty, the tortured, the damned; and she had had the pleasure of witnessing the acts of the brave, the selfless, the righteous; the best the world had to offer.

Hell! She'd taught some of them! She'd taught some from every category…

The look Hermione had held the last time Minerva had encountered her had been the look of a sad child behind the mask of a courageous woman. She could see it in her eyes, in the way she would sway, look about and shift. Something had snapped within the mind of the girl, and the guilt Minerva had at holding her tongue weighed her shoulders.

To see the woman now, after five years of unknown horrors that had left her almost unrecognizable, Minerva felt that guilt again.

'Why didn't I say something?'

"As you wish, Minerva," Poppy finally replied with a resigned sigh. "I will give them their space."

Minerva smiled at the woman across the bed from her, and gave her a grateful nod.

"Thank you. I must take my leave, for I must inform the Minister. He will be most interested in knowing that she has returned, and that she will live. He may also tell Mr. Weasley of her safe re-"

"Bloody hell, Minerva!" Poppy swore, and loudly. "Can you not see that I have had quite the trying morning? You need to add the Weasley's into this debacle?" If Poppy's words didn't hold merit, Minerva may have been upset with the older witch's choice in tone. The angry witch flicked her wrist once more, and Hermione wore a fresh blue infirmary gown, and the sheet-like blanket was out from under her and pulled up over her form, tucked within the pits of her arms.

"Fine," Minerva agreed, openly admiring Poppy's handy work with an appreciative look. She was right, though. The last thing anyone needed, especially an unconscious Hermione, was a murderous riot of red-heads. "I will inform Shacklebolt, and I will ask that he not inform Auror Weasley until I have given him the clear. Or, until Miss Granger is up and decides to do it herself. Good day, Poppy."

Minerva turned and left the room, dropping her silencing charm on her way out.

()()()()()

The dreams Hermione had had while under were mostly suppressed by the potion Poppy would later claim she had given her. The only thing she could remember of her slumber was the ghosting of calloused fingertips running from her bare shoulders, over both bare breasts, down the front of her abdomen, only to rest roughly over her hip bones, pinning her down into the soft fabric of what she could only remember as sheets.

Le Don's sheets…

"Le Don!" Hermione gasped the name, partially in surprise, partially due to the pain that flexed in her muscles and bones everywhere. Sitting up in bed at the cold feeling on her tongue from speaking that name, she opened her eyes to the dim lighting of… "-the Hogwarts fucking infirmary."

She'd recognize those shite curtains and their twinkling metal rings anywhere. Keeping them uncharmable had been a right perfect alarm system, making escape so much bloody harder than it needed to be. Even in her state, she knew she could sidle down the halls and beyond the grounds before anyone had noticed she'd gone.  
She didn't feel as bad as she had when she had awoken under the stars, just before sunrise… Pomfrey must have-

"Her- Hermione?"

The witch's still aching body tensed noticeably. The voice that had spoken had not graced her ears in so long, she almost felt like, in the darkness of the room, Harry's voice was still the ghost it had become in her dreams.


	4. The Runaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione wakes up.

It had been forty hours since Malfoy showed up to cancel Harry's classes and take him to the infirmary, it had been forty hours since Harry had laid eyes on Hermione's nightmarish appearance, and it had been a forty straight hours that he had continued to do so. Granted, she looked fairly normal at this point, and Harry had allowed the quickly fading evidence of her battering be one of his only comforts.

He had not eaten; he had not showered or spoken. He slept, for only a few minutes, sitting upright in the chair he'd transfigured to be more comfortable. He drank a little water and had managed to conjure his old tea set for his morning ritual that day, but that was pretty much it.

He'd sigh, he'd blink. He'd nod or shake his head whenever Poppy had spoken to him. He'd even managed an understanding nod when the old nurse had told him that the Weasleys were not to be informed of Hermione's survival until she had finally awoken and could handle other visitors.

The mention of the Weasleys caused Harry's stomach to twist again, for two different reasons:  
One was for the fact that he would never get the sound of Molly Weasley's wales of despair at the news out of his head. Losing Fred- it had been, without needing saying, bloody hard on the old girl. For the first few months after the war ended, she had cried randomly, oft times constantly. She would be spelling water for tea or preparing dinner, and he would watch tears stream down her face. He didn't want to think of how she might sob while she was alone.

When they told her of what may have befallen their Hermione, the mourning that had slowly ebbed after the first year had come back doubled, rightfully so, and Harry had found it harder and harder to face the Burrow.

Hermione had been another of Molly's adopted children. The woman's maternal instincts would never turn down a new mouth to feed or heart to love, and it had not helped that everyone had known Ron had been planning to propose. Molly, and everyone else really, had been ready for Ron to make Hermione's title of "daughter" official and binding.

The last time Harry had made a house call had been last summer. It was now May. 'Almost a year ago...' Harry thought absently.

The memories of waking up that early spring morning to Hermione's absence played over and over and over and over, every fucking time he was there. The panicked searching, the heart cramping horrendous theories. It all became like a personal muggle horror film, leaving no brutal death unplayed.

The second reason for Harry's red-haired discomfort was that everyone knew that he and the Weasleys were, for all intents and purposes, the only family Hermione had left. Poppy hadn't said "the Grangers and the Weasleys" weren't to be told. She'd left it at "The Weasleys".

'She must have heard the news...'

A couple of years after Hermione's disappearance, Fleur had received a letter from an old friend, a Muggleborn witch, with a clipping from a Parisian Muggle newspaper. Hermione Granger's name was known to every witch and wizard on the planet, so when the French girl had seen the names in the Sunday post, she sent it to Fleur, wondering if the people mentioned were Hermione's relatives.

When Fleur had translated the short obituary to the packed full Burrow, they'd all been shaken. They knew how sick with grief Hermione's remaining family must be, if their reactions were anything to go by. The Granger family had lost three of its kin in three years, and was survived by Hermione's mum’s parents.

He had never gone to see them. He would think, 'What would I even say? Hello. Harry, here. I knew your granddaughter. I am so sorry for your loss. Yes, I went to Hogwarts- Yes. It's a school for young, aspiring veterinarians,' or whatever other rot Hermione's grandparent's believed about her being shipped away for the majority of her adolescence.

No. Harry had not figured out what to say to the elder Grangers, so he'd said nothing at all.

He had mumbled painful sentences of condolence more than he could stomach after the war had ended. He did not believe that his giving recognition of their pain would do anything to help them. It may have caused more questions, ones he couldn't answer, and he didn't want to leave them any more hurt or confused. Harry had sworn off dealing with the hurt and confusion of others, to the best of his ability, what with having plenty of his own to deal with.

He hadn't always been so selfish, but he was tired. So fucking tired of dealing with other people's shite. But now, here he was, dealing with more shite!

He was happy to do it for her, though. He had missed her so much, and dreamt of her more times than he could count. He was going to take his selfish tendencies further, and say he couldn't wait to hear her voice, and see if it was as rough as she looked, or if it had retained that girl-like warmth.

He knew he should be worried about who had done this. He was sitting there, like dog who had been left inside to watch its master from the window, when he should be using his Legilimency to see into her mind. He should be breaking laws, and taking names. He should be figuring out where to find the cunt who'd done this to her. He should be telling Poppy to kick rocks and fly some kites, so he could go find Ron, and the two of them could start the manhunt immediately. 'The old bat,' He thought bitterly.

Harry frowned at himself for where his mind had gone.

Harry owed Poppy a lot. She gave him all of the potions he needed, and had conceded in being the one to request potions from Malfoy so that he didn't have to directly ask the git himself. He wondered if she did so because she liked being known as the one to add to Draco’s workload. She did often times seem the vindictive type, what with the business of leaving kids to holler for a while before fixing them up.

But yes, he owed her a lot, though he could never truly care for the woman. Not only had she never been contrite, but also so- detached. Like she hated her job but did it anyway, and like she was the only one who mattered on her little island infirmary. Sure, this was her house, so to speak, but she acted like all of Hogwarts was her bitch when it came to taking care of the thousands of incidents that occurred every year.

Accidents at Hogwarts were unavoidable; therefore she knew she was the one everyone would turn to in their hour of need.

Hell! Four accidents had happened since he began his watch behind the curtain, and Harry had sat silently and listened as the flustered old woman fixed up her patients and sent them on their way.

Harry yawned, scanning Hermione's form once more, noticing her breath, noticing how her shoulder looked like it was finished healing, aside from the slight discoloration. It would probably feel sore for a while, but she was healing, and she would be better soon.

Harry figured it would be really soon. She must have been having a magical surge or something, because whatever Poppy had given the woman was working better than he had imagined. He hoped her other injuries were doing just as well.

Another yawn, this time louder and longer, fell from Harry's mouth and he looked to the clock.

"Ah, shite," Harry grumbled in defeat at the late hour, before fidgeting to get comfortable in his soft, cushy, high backed seat. His spells on the chair had aided in his sleeping there, and he was beginning to feel that oh so telling sag that suggested he was getting too tired to stay awake. 

'Finally!' He thought gratefully.

His lids were getting closer together…

His shoulders relaxed…

His mind was tired, and could no longer function without a bit of sleep…

"Le Don!"

Harry jumped at the sound of the gasped words, and his closed eyes opened to see Hermione sitting straight up in bed, eyes wide and staring at the curtains before her.

He couldn't move, and he could hardly breathe, so he just sat there and watched from his spot behind her, waiting for her to come out of her trance of her own accord. He was afraid to get her attention, afraid to ask her the billions of questions he had been waiting to ask since she'd vanished. He gulped, struggling ever so slightly with the function.  
"-the Hogwarts fucking infirmary?!" She did not sound pleased. At all. 

'Why is she not pleased!?' The dark haired man panicked inwardly.

"Her-Hermione." Harry managed, forcing another swallow with his dry throat after staring at her a bit longer.

She froze, and she did not turn to look at him. She simply sat there, peering at the curtain for an inestimably long moment, long enough for Harry to get a sinking feeling in his stomach. 'Why is she not pleased? Why isn't she looking at me?!' Harry was beside himself at her silence.

She kept her eyes forward as she reached up and began to pull the bandages from her face and head. She did not unwrap them as they should have; she just pulled them down to let them well about her neck like a scarf, trapping her long hair beneath it.

"Harry."

Her voice sounded much clearer now that her jaw wasn't forced shut, and Harry decided to count her voice as another one of those things that had changed about her. There was no warmth, no girlish zeal at being reunited with her best friend. Just a low, monotone whisper that was laced with an unpleasant hint of indifference that sounded like an acknowledgement, rather than the warm greeting he had expected.

He blinked at her, and he felt the panic one felt just before something awful was about to happen. His legs were numb; his heart was pounding through his chest so loudly he was sure even she heard it.  
Her eyes remained distant, looking at the curtain like… Like she wanted to reach out to it only to- to pull it back and- 'Run away…' Harry's thought made his heart stop again.

"How did I get here? I was somewhere else- outside. Somewhere else!" She still didn't look to him as she spoke in unhappy tones and mumbled words. Harry's trembling hands cleaved onto the arms of his chair with white knuckles, and his voice shook as he replied,

"Malfoy found you on the road from Hogsmeade- yesterday morning."

"Bollocks!" was her very un-Hermione like response. 'Two swears? In five minutes?' Harry was getting more and more confused by the second.

She began to shift, her eyes darting about her body, still avoiding him, as she stiffly threw back the covers and started pulling the casts from her leg and shoulder with a surprising force. 

She'd healed quickly, indeed.

Then his mind was lost in how well she was moving from the bed for someone in her state he barely caught himself in time to stand and stop her from hobbling past the curtains.

He was up and had his hand on her elbow so quickly it must have startled her, and she pivoted into him, her other elbow swinging about and landing in his Adams apple, causing him to sputter and choke and crumble to the floor. He noted the sound of the jingle of the curtain rings, and the sounds of the hard pounding, but stumbling, bare feet of Hermione as she left. And quite quickly, he might add.

Picking himself up, one hand at his sore throat, he moved for the door and exited. But not before he could hear Poppy's yelled questions and pleas to stop her fleeing charge.

()()()()()

The hallways were quiet as the Potions Master was coming to the end of his rounds, somewhere near the Grand Entrance en route to the dungeons. He did this every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday; unless he'd gone to St. Mungo's for the weekend.  
At midnight, he would relinquish his watch to Filch and Norris, and go back to his rooms where he pretended to sleep. He would almost prefer to keep making rounds, but he figured he could use the short minutes of strenuous sleep he'd been able to have. His dreams were still coming, and ever since the morning before, when he had returned from the hospital, he had nothing but dreams of Hermione Granger.

Dreams that, much to Draco's dismay, had shifted from him seeing a dead Granger, to him watching Granger die. He had had dreams of her being tortured, but they had never ended in her dying before. He just watched, for what seemed an eternity, as his Aunt mutilated the woman.

The previous night, when she made her appearance, she was being beaten by a group of people wearing long black robes. At first, Draco had not realized they were Death Eaters, but had the feeling of ice cold water hit his stomach when he finally did.

She would cry for help, scream when struck, moan and whine… One time she vomited when one of the Dark Wizards brought the tip of his shoe into her stomach, the putrid gunk mixing with the blood.  
Draco shook his head, trying to dislodge the memories, and send them packing. He did not want hear her cries; he no longer thirsted for the sight of her blood pooling on the floor of the Manor... He did NOT want this sickness, or the memories, or the dreams, or- or, '-or my bloody brain!' he finished in his mind.

He growled and shook his head again as the memories came back against the wall he was trying to build to keep them out. His hair, which he loved dearly, had not been put back into its signature ribbon, which he loved dearly, since he'd taken it out in McGonagall's office. It had started giving him a headache that morning, but the pain did not subside with its truancy. Even with the pain draughts, he could not make it stop. He knew he needed to lie down and get a full night's sleep, but even that was unattainable due to the tolerance he built to Dreamless Sleep, as well as the ever potent concoction that George Weasley made for his shop.

Draco was starting to think that he was going to have to obliviate himself, very soon, even if it cost him his job and his sanity because he erased too much. The problem with messing with your own memories was how often the self-induced amnesia backfired, and left more than one person with the mental state of an infant.

'That almost sounds inviting…' Draco thought, his self-pity party already getting the best of him. Shit, man. He still had at least six conscious hours left. What did this night promise if he was already on the verge of psychological suicide?

BOOM!

Draco jumped, even yelped a bit, at the sound of a massive explosion some floors above him. He jumped back into an alcove beside a statue, but only in just enough time to save him from getting hit in the head with an arm from a suit of armor; which had flown down the stairwell from the unknown source of the explosion above.

Draco stared down at the hunk of metal near his feet and watched as the animated fingers lifted and waved to him, as if it being flights below the rest of its body was totally natural.

"Hermione!"

Draco jumped again at the sound of Potter's voice ringing through the massive stairwell, and he almost tripped in his attempt to move toward the bottom of the first flight of stairs, and looked up to see nothing. Or, at least nothing at first.

When he spotted the top of Granger's head bouncing and moving swiftly down the next flight up, he gulped in the comprehension that the mental broad was running from the infirmary. ‘What the fuck?!' He didn't have time for any more stupid shite in his life.

"Wait!" Potter's voice rang, a little louder- closer- this time. It was filled to the brim with panic.

The pale-haired wizard- in all of his piteous, confused glory- watched in both fear and amazement as the witch came into view, whipping her hand and her magic backward in what looked like an intentional attempt to send yet another explosion toward The Man Who Might Not Live Very Much Longer. A huge chunk of the stairs' stone railing went toppling off the back side of the main stairway it was connected to, and Draco had to flinch at the notable cracking noises it made as it hit the floor somewhere out of sight.

As she came down the stairs and made her way toward him, Draco first noticed the witch's eyes, the ones he always claimed to be full of shite, shown with a fire so ferocious he could almost see the tips of the flames coming up to lick at her eyebrows. She wore a hospital gown, a short number that did nothing to hide the movement of her lose breasts, or the nipples that had hardened in the cool night air. Her hair, which was being held down by a scarf of bandages, still had some sections that were out and flying around her as she moved.

He could not believe how she moved!

Even as wounded as she had been the day before, and with the large bruises he could still see on her leg and face, she prowled like a jungle cat that wanted nothing more than to make it to its next destination; its next meal. She shouldn't have been walking, let alone lightly hobbling as she raged, no- hurricaned, down the steps.

"Malfoy," was the very cat-like growl he received when she noticed him in her way, drawing those frightening eyes from his feet to his face in one predatory sweep.

Draco was ashamed to admit that he froze. He pulled a stupid face, held his hands up in front of it, and froze.

Flinching and holding his hands in front of his face was still a very natural response whenever Granger graced his presence while in a fit of rage.

And though Draco could not definitively say he did not deserve it, the brunette brought her foot up and kicked Draco so hard in his unprotected stomach he flew back into the wall of the alcove he'd just been cowering in. Before she moved past him, Draco heard behind eyes closed in pain, another resounding explosion from the stairway in her third attempt to keep Potter from following her.

Draco lay there, in fetal position, for a number of seconds before he heard the footfall that came to stop before him.

"Get up! We have to stop her!" Draco opened his eyes to Potter's, the green of them flashing with pain and confusion, and sparkled with the promise of tears.

"She obviously doesn't want to be stopped! And I don't feel like getting Muggle-handled! Or blown up!" Draco spat.

"Get the fuck up, Malfoy!" Potter pulled him to his feet with a harsh tug of his arm, and Draco, for some self-loathing reason, made after his fellow Professor and the witch he had been secretly hoping to see back to full health.

'This,' he thought lightly, as he struggled to run out of the front doors behind Potter, 'will be an interesting memory to replace the others with.'


End file.
